Phone sale growth back to normal after demonetisation: Samsung

Samsung has also met its October-December quarter sales target despite demonetisation and the decision to not launch Galaxy Note 7 smartphone due to safety concernET Bureau | January 20, 2017, 09:01 IST

Sales growth of mobile phone, including of feature phones, hit due to demonetisation, is back to normal in January over last year, according to Manu Sharma, vice-president (mobile business), of India's largest mobile phone maker Samsung India.

He said retailers have quickly adopted digital payment, and companies like his have provided easy finance option and offers that have helped the industry to quickly overcome the sales slowdown, which happened immediately after government's demonetisation move in November 2016.

Samsung has also met its October-December quarter sales target despite demonetisation and the decision to not launch Galaxy Note 7smartphone due to safety concern.

“While December was almost normal, Samsung is back to double digit growth in mobile phone business from January . In fact, we met our sales target last quarter whereby we had one of the best years in recent past. Our overall mobile phone business grew by double digit in 2016,“ said Sharma. Samsung has grown its smartphone share from 41% to 46.9% in 2016, he said.

As per industry estimates, cellphone sales declined by 40-50% in November after demonetisation and was down by 15-20% in December, while the worst impacted were feature and entry-level smartphones which are mostly purchased by cash. The worst hit were the Indian brands who used to operate strongly in these segments.

Samsung said it will continue its growth momentum this year too and will aim at gaining further market share. “There is a lot of India-specific innovation which is happening in our R&D lab which will be rolled out to the upcoming launches. We will continue to expand our sales distribution and service network whereby we are confident to gain share,“ said Sharma.

The company on Wednesday announced its entry into a new smartphone segment, the C series with a hardwa the C series with a hardware rich handset C9 Pro which has been launched only in China. This series will operate in the premium segment at Rs 30,000-plus and will be priced between the flagship S series and mid-segment A series.

While Samsung and Apple are the two dominant brands in the Rs 30,000-plus g closely for supremacy, in segment, fighting closely for supremacy , industry executives said the company plans to create this category so that Samsung becomes a dominant leader over Apple.

Sharma said there are 220 million smartphone users where the C series will be positioned as an upgrade option for consumers.“We had created the large screen phone category with Galaxy Grand and now expect to create this new price segment with the C series,“ he said.